White Smoke

Generally white smoke means water in the combustion system, you may have a slight leak or crack in your cylinder head, or condensation build up.

The fact it stops when the engine builds up heat may be attributed to a small crack becoming closed because of heat expansion, and reopening when cold.

Cracked head. Not good. Are there any other indicators that I may see that would confirm this. Oil in water etc??

We get plenty of white smoke when we run our fuel tank dry and are swtiching over to the 2nd tank. Mixture then is too lean ie not enough fuel.

Get a diesel specialist to look at it before spending any money on new heads, batteries, etc. That is what I would do.

I found that my glow plugs were U/S. Replacement of these helped things greatly on cold mornings. The smoke cleared by 50% but it still blows a bit of white and has done for the last 150000km and I just don't worry about it any more..

It is difficult for the failure of 1 or 2 faulty glow plugs to be detected. Someone on theis board posted a test procedure recently.

I thought my 60 series 2H was stuffed when it started blowing large quantities of white smoke on start-up, and then lumpy running for a couple of minutes. Turned out to be ONE faulty glow plug. They're easy to check with an ohm-meter, just take off the strap that connects them all together, and each (good) one will measure pretty close to a dead short to ground.

Cheers

I thought my 60 series 2H was stuffed when it started blowing large quantities of white smoke on start-up, and then lumpy running for a couple of minutes. Turned out to be ONE faulty glow plug. They're easy to check with an ohm-meter, just take off the strap that connects them all together, and each (good) one will measure pretty close to a dead short to ground.

Cheers

Lets not go ripping engines down just yet.
there are a few factors to be considered the most common already mentioned. Glow Plugs.
Check all these first and then a good investment is $80 to have your pump timed with a dial guage because incorrect settings on a pump can cause exactly that. Ask any pump specialist who knows his stuff.
If none of these check out and even before you do the pump timing you can go to NRMA and they will more than likely have the you beaut device that checks your radiator water for gasses. But here's a tip drain,flush and refill your radiator with clean water first so you dont get any bodgy readings.
Hope this helps but i htink you would know if you had head gasket probs and if you dont you will.
Hope this was of help

I was overwhelmed with the number and quality of responses. They have given me plenlty of food for thought. Thank you all who contributed.

Sounds normal!Royce www.funshow.com.au

new glow plugs usually fix it, or else injectors are leaking or poor compression